8 Deadly Mobile Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Mobile marketing can turn your brand into a household name and boost your profits through the roof – but only if you’re doing it right. Luckily, tons of businesses have come along and made every single mistake in the book so that we can learn from them. Here are 8 biggest to avoid.

Directing Mobiles to Your PC Site

In order to do any kind of mobile marketing, you need a mobile version of your site. Mobile users pretty much pull their hair out in frustration trying to navigate a PC website. When they hit your PC site, which is so busy-looking on a small mobile screen that they can’t make heads or tails of it, they’ll click the back button fast. No matter how nice an offer you’re making, they won’t stick around. You’ve got to have a mobile site.

Killing Them with Text

There’s a major change in strategy marketers have to embrace when they go to mobile. You’ve got to give up on all the text. Your website should use it sparingly and you should avoid using articles for marketing purposes. There’s nothing like a website crammed with text to make a mobile user’s eyeballs spin in their sockets.

Forms to Fill out

Have you ever tried to enter a lot of text on a smartphone? It’s not a pleasant experience. If you’ve got a sign up form that makes them input a whole slew of information, they’re going to give up halfway through. Typing is hard work on most mobile devices. Instead, make use of the touch screen and let them select from a menu.

QR Code Confusion

Yes, most of the world knows what QR codes are and what they do, but not everybody. If you slap that code on your ad with no indication of what it is, lots of people won’t know. And even the ones who do know need a little nudge. Tell them to scan here with their phone. You should also tell them why they should do it. Some will scan out of curiosity, but more will if they understand there are juicy coupons waiting there for them.

The Wrong Content

You can give your mobile users downloads, videos to watch, apps and any other kind of content, but make sure it’ll all work on their devices first. There is quite a bit media that doesn’t. The last thing you want to do is make them a great offer and get them to click only to discover the video won’t play. Test all of your content on a wide range of devices beforehand.

Too Heavy on the Sales

More people today shop on their mobiles than ever before, but it’s still nothing compared to online shopping. If your mobile marketing pushes the hard sale too hard, you’ll lose people. Use your mobile strategy instead to build brand awareness, offer them useful apps, and get them to your store rather than just selling.

Apps That Make Them Say ‘So What?’

It’s easy to develop an app, but what’s tough is making something of value that your target market can actually use. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and think, ‘What would wow me and make my life ten times easier?’ Answer that question and you’ve got an app that will get results.

Going Mobile Because Everybody’s Doing It

Well, actually this is a good reason to go mobile. Not because everybody’s doing it but because your customers are. But don’t start marketing to mobiles without a solid plan. Decide exactly what you want to achieve with your campaign. Make it clear and measurable, and then you’ll know exactly what you need to do in order to get there.